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Note: This article represents the view of the author and not the University of Hong Kong.

Thank you for the questions raised by Mr. Kew Ching-wa published in Ming Pao special column 'Ching Ying Club' on 8 October, the author has the opportunity to review the reasons behind the failure of the New Territories East 'Diamond List' again. If this question is asked by some political parties, the author would not make any in-depth analyses in order to avoid any misunderstanding that we are helping particular political parties. Please pardon the author using the pen name to greet Mr. Kew Ching-wa, this is not Mr. Kew's real name.

Because Mr. Kew also agrees with the statement that Tso Wung-wai has weakened Andrew Wong's vote source, therefore this paper only focuses on whether the separate list of the pro-democracy camp can take up more Council positions.

According to the public opinion survey results conducted by the University of Hong Kong Public Opinion Programme (HKUPOP), the author would say the answer to the question is certainly affirmative. However, the author has to emphasize, all of the post-analyses can only be used for theoretical discussion, it may be quite impracticable. Since time is irreversible, objective facts can never be changed. History that can be rewritten is never history; they are only people's interpretation of history.

Now, let us assume time goes back when '7.1 United Front' is separated into three election lists. According to the analyses of the author, the formation of '7.1 United Front' by Andrew Cheng, Emily Lau, Ronny Tong, Wong Sing-chi, Richard Tsoi Yiu-cheong, Shirley Ho and Ricky Or can in fact be separated into three lists, and they are the Democratic Party, Frontier, and Article 45 Concern Group. The Democratic Party should include Andrew Cheng, Wong Sing-chi and Shirley Ho; Frontier's list should be formed by Emily Lau, Richard Tsoi and Ricky Or, and only Ronny Tong should belong to the Article 45 Concern Group. In fact, Emily Lau, Richard Tsoi and Ricky Or grouped together as the Frontier in the election four years ago, and voters in the New Territories East are very familiar with this. Richard Tsoi has represented the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (CTU) joining the '7.1 United Front' this year. He is still a member of the Frontier; therefore there should not be any problems.

Just like what Mr. Kew Ching-wa has mentioned, let us assume it is inevitable for James Tien and Leung Kwok-hung to join the election, and it is a definite consequence that they take away the votes of the pro-democracy camp. We also assume that the list which includes Andrew Wong, Tso Wung-wai and Lau Kong-wah is not affected by the separation of the Frontier, and all of their received votes are kept. For general prediction, the votes for the pro-China camp are almost there, whereas the pro-democracy votes still got the capacity to increase. If the overall voting rate is higher, or if the pro-democracy camp can increase its attractiveness after the separation of the pro-democracy list, it is very normal that the overall votes received by pro-democracy camp in the New Territories East constituency would be higher.

Nonetheless, to ensure our analyses is more secure and accurate, the author uses a much more conservative method, that is to assume the voting rate would not change despite of the separation of the list. The author draws the conclusion that Wong Sing-chi is successfully elected whereas Li Kwok-ying is not, solely based on the results of the exit polls and references from political spectrum and the flow of vote source after separating the vote sources of '7.1 United Front' and James Tien.

First of all, we analyze and separate Leung Kwok-hung's vote source. According to our exit poll findings, among the votes to Leung Kwok-hung, 13% of them come from the supporters of the previously joint list of Emily Lau and Richard Tsoi. Moreover, 13% come from supporters of Andrew Cheng's list from previous Democratic Party, and 5% come from Wong Sing-chi's list, again from previous Democratic Party, altogether it is 31% and total number of votes is 18,887. To reverse the separation of vote source of the '7.1 United Front', the votes received by Leung Kwok-hung should decrease to 42,038, the total votes received by the list in every United Front's group should increase to 187,720. Leung Kwok-hung is still elected.

After all, we have to reallocate the entire new and old vote sources of the '7.1 United Front' among the Frontier's list, Democratic Party's list and Ronny Tong's solo list through two phases. Results from the exit polls have demonstrated that among the supporters of the United Front, more than 15% of them support Emily Lau and Richard Tsoi's previous joint list, and 28% support Andrew Cheng's previous list. Moreover, 9% of them support Wong Sing-chi's list from the previous Democratic Party. Therefore, the separate ratio of Frontier's and Democratic Party's lists should be defined as 15 to 37. Hence, Frontier can receive 54,150 votes, and Emily wins in this election.

Regarding the separate vote sources of the Democratic Party and Ronny Tong, since there is no previous example to follow, we can only refer to the most relevant circumstances from other constituency boundaries in this election. In Kowloon East, Ronny Tong and Alan Leong both belong to 'Article 45 Concern Group'; they take 24% of the vote source from Szeto Wah of the previous Democratic Party's list, Albert Cheng's list takes away the rest 35%. Therefore, from the vote source left by '7.1 United Front' for the Democratic Party, a proportion of 24% is allocated to Ronny Tong. Therefore there are 101,513 remaining votes for Democratic Party, and 32,057 votes flow to Ronny Tong. Hence, Albert Cheng and Wong Sing-chi from the Democratic Party win the election. At this stage, the separation of vote source of '7.1 United Front' is completed.

What follows is the vote source of James Tien. According to our exit poll results, among the votes of James Tien, 22% of them come from previous supporters of Emily Lau, Albert Cheng and Wong Sing-chi's lists, hence 15,083 votes. The author estimates that these vote sources should be very close to the middle position of the political spectrum, whereas if Ronny Tong is independent in the election, he should be able to take the votes that originally belong to the Democratic Party, rather than flowing to the Liberal Party. If these vote sources move to Ronny Tong, 53,477 votes would be left for James Tien, whereas Ronny Tong gets 47,140. Both James Tien and Ronny Tong can be elected.

Since Li Kwok-ying, who ranked second in the DAB's list, has less remaining votes than Wong Sing-chi, Li loses in the election whereas Lau Kong-wah still wins with high vote. These results have been clearly shown in the figures in this paper.

This paper is not attempted to criticize or attack the electoral strategies of the '7.1 United Front', nor to weaken the public opinion status of any elected council members. The author just wants to respond to Mr. Kew Ching-wa's questions and point out the mysteries within the election system through scientific and open survey figures.

Table 1：'Diamond List' Actual Results

	Total votes	First remaining votes	Second remaining votes
Leung Kwok-hung	60,925	0	0
7.1 United Front	168,833（Albert Cheng）	107,261（Emily Lau）	45,689（Ronny Tong）
James Tien	68,560	6,988	0
Andrew Wong	23,081	0	0
Tso Wung-wai	14,174	0	0
Lau Kong-wah's list	95,434（Lau Kong-wah）	33,862（Li Kwok-ying）	0

Effective votes = 431,007；Threshold＝61,572 votes
Elected order: Albert Cheng, Emily Lau, Lau Kong-wah, James Tien, Leung Kwok-hung, Ronny Tong, Li Kwok-ying

Table 2: Possible Outcomes of the Separate Lists

	Total votes	First remaining votes	Second remaining votes
Leung Kwok-hung	42,038	0	0
Frontier's list	54,150（Emily Lau）	0	0
Democratic Party's list	101,513（Albert Cheng）	39,941（Wong Sing-chi）	0
Ronny Tong	47,140	0	0
James Tien	53,477	0	0
Andrew Wong	23,081	0	0
Tso Wung-wai	14,174	0	0
Lau Kong-wah's list	95,434（Lau Kong-wah）	33,862（Li Kwok-ying）	0

Effective votes＝431,007；Threshold＝61,572 votes
Elected order: Albert Cheng, Lau Kong-wah, Emily Lau, James Tien, Ronny Tong, Leung Kwok-hung, Wong Sing-chi